Forget investment banks, they’re all cutting pay. Private equity funds aren’t doing too well either. However, the big US funds do at least have the advantage of appearing to compensate their employees unfeasibly well nonetheless.

We deduce this from Carlyle’s results, which are out now. What with market conditions and difficulties exiting its investments, the Carlyle Group made a loss of $57m in the second quarter. Nevertheless, it increased base pay 77% year-on-year in Q2 and accrued $406m in realized (ie. non-deferred) compensation costs in the first half of the year. Given that Carlyle apparently employs only 1,100 people, this would seem to amount to average first half compensation of $369k, implying average annual compensation of $739k, which helps explain why Carlyle’s quite such a popular employer.

If you want to work for Carlyle, it might interest you to know that we once spoke to its head of EMEA recruiting. You can see our conversation with her here. Unfortunately, she told us Carlyle only hires 5 people in Europe each year.

Meanwhile:

Want to work for a bank with absolutely enormous derivatives exposure? Try JPMorgan. (BigPicture)

UBS strategists suggests companies do nothing with their cash piles, which might be why UBS is doing so badly in M&A . (Financial News)

Morgan Stanley posted losses on 15 trading days in the second quarter. Bank of America posted 3. (Wall St. Journal)

“French people have an uncomfortable relationship with money.” (NYTimes)

If you want to be a good fixed income fund manager: ““You have to have a very strong technical foundation and strong risk management discipline. You have to be quite strong-minded in these markets, because they are fundamentally illiquid. It means that it’s harder to capture opportunities and harder to exit positions that are going against you.” (Financial News)

Interactive panorama simulates the sensation of landing on Mars. (Mashable)